Black Mask (Vol. 7, No. 5 — April 1950), British Edition

They started off conservatively enough and I lasted five hands, losing each one and it cost me twelve dollars, so I quit. I took a little ragging, but not bad because everybody had an idea what the Wildwood Press paid its help. I stood around and watched awhile and slowly but surely, Willis Marlow became the heavy winner. His luck was almost incredible.

With every hand that he won, he ordered a drink around for the players. He held it well, but I could tell by the sagging of his facial muscles and the way he occasionally rocked in his chair that he was getting progressively drunker. But it didn’t seem to affect his judgement. He played a good tight game. Eric Fabian dropped out after losing about a hundred and fifty dollars.

Gus Berkaw, the barkeep, who had come over to watch the game, sat in his place. Eric yawned a few times and went off upstairs to bed. I followed him a few minutes later. I wasn’t too worried about Willis Marlow. He was so far ahead, I didn’t see how he could possibly wind up losing. Lee Marlow didn’t have to worry about her Pops on that score.

The second floor of Loon Lodge was reached by a center stairwell. At the top, on a bulletin board, was tacked a slip of paper with a listing of tonight’s guests and the numbers of the rooms to which they’d been assigned. There was a long hall, dimly lit by an overhead light at each end. There were doors opening off of each side of the hall. The old fashioned gas jets had never been removed but only sealed up. At one end of the hall was a door leading to the apartment where Harry and Irma Wenzel lived.

I went into my room and it was a big, high-ceilinged affair. It was furnished simply but comfortably, and was more like a bedroom in a private home than an inn room.

I put on pajamas and flopped on the bed for a nightcap smoke. I started thinking about Lee Marlow and all the people who were at Loon Lodge, tonight, but mostly about Lee. The cigarette burned my finger and I found that I had drowsed off. Irritiably, I punched the burning butt out in the bedside tray and that was the last thing I remember...

The screaming awakened me. I came to, sitting bolt upright on the bed. The screaming was not high-pitched but it was tight and terror-filled and sent sharp pains through my ears. It cut off, then suddenly, yet the sound seemed to hang in the air for seconds afterward.

Then I heard the dog and realized that that sound had been there, all the time, too, under the screaming. The dog sound was a savage, frenzied snarling that kept up for awhile and then gradually diminished. Then there was a heavy, leaden silence that hung like a smothering cloak over everything.

I forced my still sleep-drugged body up off the bed and moved toward the window. From the hall and from the rooms along it, I heard the sounds of other people moving around. The window of my room faced onto the back of the Lodge. I flung it wide and leaned out. The rain had stopped and gray fog hung among the trees and wisped in from the lake.

I looked toward Satan’s pen but I couldn’t see anything because of the fog. But there were sounds from down there. The back door of the lodge flung open and light washed out into the mist. Someone went out into the yard. A flashlight came on. The bright beam fought its way through the smoky fog, moved about the yard as the person wielding it, walked toward the dog’s pen.

The flash beam hit the pen. At the same instant an unearthly howl rose into the air, prolonged, anguished.

The flash light found Satan in his pen. He was standing with his front paws upon something huddled on the ground. His great, handsome head was back, the ears flat and the howling poured from his deep throat. The short, light brown hairs of his neck and head were dark and shiny with blood. It glistened on his long white fangs. The person wielding the flashlight spoke and I recognized the hoarse, gutteral tones of Eric Fabian. He swore. “That damned beast has killed Harry. He finally got Harry.”

The light focused on Satan and the thing huddled on the dirt floor of the pen. The dog stopped howling, stared into the light, and backed away from it, growling, his reddish eyes glittering. I got a good look at the thing on the ground, then. It was Harry Wenzel or it had been. He was curled on one side and his head was twisted on his neck as though it had been broken.

The sharp clap of a pistol shot bit through the fog-muffled silence. I saw Satan jump clean off the ground and when he came down his legs didn’t hold him. He lay still for a fraction of a second and I thought the bullet had gotten him.

But then he began to crawl along the ground toward Harry Wenzel, whimpering. He reached the dead man and, whining, began to lick Harry’s hand. There was a second pistol shot and the great beast jerked spasmodically, twisted over onto his side and lay still.